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[Official Guidance]

ACA Information Returns (AIR) Submission Composition and Reference Guide, Processing Year 2017 - Early Look (PDF)130 pages. v. 1.0, dated October 2016. "The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to all types of external transmitters about composing and successfully transmitting compliant submissions to IRS.... This document covers details on composing and submitting Forms 1094/1095-B and Forms 1094/1095-C by transmitters to IRS. The scope of the document addresses the Application to Application Interface ... and the Web User Interface[.]"
Internal Revenue Service [IRS]

[Guidance Overview]

More Burdens for Federal Contractors with Mandatory Paid Sick Leave"If a contractor frontloads the full amount of leave year, it may limit the carryover to the next year to 56 hours. But the contract must still frontload the full amount of leave at the beginning of the accrual year. This means that the employee's leave bank may have more than 56 hours in it each year. Employees are not entitled to be paid for their unused sick leave upon termination or resignation. But unused sick leave must be reinstated if an employee is rehired within 12 months after being separated."
Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP

The Rights and Duties of Your HSA Trustee"Your HSA trust agreement cannot limit your reimbursements to eligible expenses.... Your trustee must provide at least one way for you to make distributions (withdrawals) for non-eligible expenses.... Your trustee can place certain restrictions on distributions.... Your HSA trustee does not track your deposits to ensure that you don't exceed your maximum annual contribution.... Your trustee does not have to accept a rollover or trustee-to-trustee transfer from another HSA or an Archer MSA.... Your trustee must surrender balances if you want to move funds from that trustee via a rollover or trustee-to-trustee transfer."
Xerox HR Insights

NC Blue Cross Announces Rate Increase of 24.3 Percent for ACA Marketplace Plans"Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina has announced it will increase premiums for [ACA] plans on the individual market by an average 24.3 percent for 2017.... That is higher than the company's original rate request filed in May for an 18.8 percent increase. The rate was approved by the state Department of Insurance ... Blue Cross received an average 32.5 percent rate increase for 2016 -- one of the highest in the country."
InsuranceNewsNet.com

Are Blues' Plans Benefitting Unfairly from Program to Offset Cost of Sicker Patients?"Overall, seven of the top 10 recipients for risk-adjustment dollars were Blues' plans for 2014 and 2015, federal data show. Blue Cross Blue Shield plans are major players in most state insurance markets, so their strong performance on risk adjustment could be expected. However, a separate analysis by the Fitch Ratings agency found that some of these top recipients also have higher-than-average administrative expenses companywide."
Kaiser Health News

Clawbacks, Clawbacks Everywhere Nor Any Moment to Think"[In] 2015, public companies filed a total of 737 restatement disclosures. (The quantity of restatement and non-reliance disclosures had peaked in 2006 with 1851 disclosures.) Does that mean 737 companies would have been required to claw back compensation in 2015? Fortunately not."
Winston & Strawn LLP

BenefitsLink Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter, ISSN no. 1536-9595. Copyright 2016 BenefitsLink.com, Inc. All materials
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